Smoke

Any more, it looks like this is just going to be part of summer. This smoke is from the fires in eastern WA, having managed to cross the Cascade range into the west side. Air quality is declining and will maintain that trend over the next several days as temperatures stretch into the 90s. It never used to be like this. Sure, we had the occasional fire and the occasional run of hot weather, but until about 15 years ago, having visible smoke on the west side was rare and only happened when there was a local fire, and hot temps only showed up in mid or late August, and only lasted a few days. You don't need me to tell you what's going on here, and it's only going to get worse.

Sidebar: when I was a kid, I read Reader's Digest avidly. Even then, the things which interested me most were the science articles, condensed and edited to make them palatable to the average American (who, incidentally, was substantially better educated than the current crop). Several pieces particularly stuck with me: the discovery of the coelacanth, and the tipping point at which climate change would be irreversible. The writers of the latter theorized that when ocean temperatures had raised two degrees, there was no way out of the hole we'd dug for ourselves. We're already seeing an increase of at least 1.5 degrees (many sources claim it is higher). Like rats, we've fouled our own nest, and like rats forced into too small a habitat (by rat standards), we're turning on one other in a fight for survival.